StudyGrowKnow

Another Day to Serve the Lord

August 25, 2011 at 11:08 AM Leave a comment

It’s Thursday.  I woke up today and did what I normally do.  I head downstairs, grab a cup of coffee and head out onto the back patio.  There, I open the Word and read.  After that, I pray and then I pray some more.

The thing I find fascinating is that with each new day, I realize that it is one more day that the Lord has given me.  The question is, to what purpose?

Since the Lord has indeed given me one more day, it is patently clear that He has specific things He wants me to do in this day, otherwise there is no point in providing me another day.

This day, like any other day, is His day.  It is a gift to me, but only so that I can submit myself to Him.  The question of each day becomes, “Lord, what do you want me to do today?”

As I look back over my life, I have seen too many days I lived with my own goals in mind.  I spent time planning things, doing things, and enjoying things that were fine in and of themselves, but my focus was wrong.  Rather than considering what I would do each day, I should have been thinking about what God wanted me to do with each of those days.  After all, He gave them to me.  My days – like everyone else’s days – are fully numbered.  If that is the case, how can I possibly squander the days I am given?

So with the start of each new day, I wait before Him.  I ask Him to guide me for that day, to fulfill the things He would have me do, for the sake of His Name and for His glory.

Not once have I ever “heard” Him provide me audible directions for my life.  But it is important that if I’m going to pray at all, faith must accompany that prayer, believing that if I am asking Him to guide me, then He will do it, whether I hear His voice or not.  No, I do not expect to hear His voice.  I expect that He will simply guide my steps.

I am writing another book tentatively titled “They Call It Cheap Grace” and a good portion of the book focuses on the story or parable of the Prodigal Son.  In the book, I note the attitude of the young son and the father, two remarkably different individuals.  I note how the son at first, was so proud and arrogant that he had the audacity to demand from his father the inheritance that would be his after his father died!  Not only was this absolutely disrespectful, selfish, and arrogant, but the young son did not care how neighbors would look at that situation.  The young son’s eyes were focused solely on himself, his wants, his perceived needs, and his desires.  He did not care one bit about his father.

The interesting thing is that this young man was already part of the family.  This was his father.  As a son, he had far more rights and privileges than any hired hand or servant on his father’s estate.  None of that was good enough, and I am willing to bet that the young son did not really notice any of that.  He was too busy listening to the dictates of SELF.  The only thing that was important was what HE wanted, what HE felt he was owed.

It is interesting to also note how quickly the father gave his son what the son demanded.  Without hesitation, the father gave his son his inheritance and without so much as a “thanks Dad!” the son was off on a journey to begin his “new” life, unfettered from the demands of his father.

We need to realize that this son was not married.  He did not have responsibilities to a wife or children, which would have understandably causes his loyalties to be primarily with them.  In this case, the son was single and he wanted to live the single, immoral life.  In the text – Luke 15 – we are simply told that the son went off and lived an immoral life, squandering the money that he had received from his father.

Fortunately, for the son, in due time – when he ran out of money, his so-called friends had deserted him, and he had found a job feeding pigs – he came to his senses.  He began to realize the kind of man his father was toward him and his brother.  He began to see that in spite of the way he had treated his father, he was a very fair man.  He treated all of his servants fairly and kindly and always made sure that they had enough to eat.

He then realized that if this was how his father had treated the servants, maybe he would be willing to take him back not as a son, but as a servant!  At least this way, he would be treated fairly and have a full stomach.  The son realized that expecting his father to receive him back as a son was asking too much.

I absolutely love the transformation that occurs within the son.  He comes up with a plan – one that comes from the heart.  Because he had treated his father like garbage publicly, he would apologize to his father sincerely and also publicly.  He would submit himself to his father asking only that he be treated as a servant because he had grown to understand that he was no longer worthy to be called his son.

Yes, that was what he would do!  I can imagine how free the son felt at this point.  Some might argue that he was feeling terrible remorse and guilt and that’s the way it should be.  I disagree because when we feel guilty, the focus is on ourselves.  In other words, we begin to see how wrong we were, which is good.  But the problem comes in when that’s all we see, and then we start to beat ourselves up emotionally for being so despicable.  This is what guilt does.  It simply accuses and offers absolutely no solution whatsoever.

I believe that while the son without doubt, absolutely realized how wrong he was, because he came up with a plan to correct that wrong as much as possible, he was not feeling guilt at all, but freedom!  Let me explain.  As guilt tends to immobilize a person, causing that person to often sink to the lowest level as they castigate themselves, the freedom that comes from realizing how to fix the problem that we have created because of our sin is actually exhilarating.  This is far from “earning” our salvation or God’s favor.  It is doing what we should be doing because we see the wrong we have committed and we want to make it right, as far as we are able.

I can imagine the son left the pig pen for his father’s estate with a quick gait.  He was probably so looking forward to making it right with his father.  He had no guarantees though that his father would even acknowledge him because of what he had done, but it was worth a try.

I can also imagine that this young man began to pray and might have prayed the entire journey.  I believe it was God who opened his eyes in the first place and because of that, he now felt emboldened to speak with God.  Who knows how long it had been that the young son had taken the time to open his heart to the God of his father?  On this journey back home, I can imagine that he spent a good portion of the walk just confessing his sin and attitude to God.  I don’t believe he did this in order to make himself feel guilty or terrible.  He knew he was guilty whether he felt it or not.  That was simply a fact that he could no longer deny.  He agreed with God wholeheartedly that he was guilty, that he was not worthy of being called his father’s son.

I can see in my mind’s eye this young man’s prayer that may have gone a bit like this:  “O God of my father, though I am not worthy to be heard by you, I pray that you would incline your ear to me.  I have wronged my father and sinned in your sight.  I am not worthy of being called my father’s son.  I have no right to ask you for anything, yet I pray that should you be willing, to allow my father to see me not as a son, but as a servant!  I have deliberately and with malice treated my father with tremendous disrespect.  I know that this is wrong, but I’m asking you Lord for the opportunity to make it right!  Help me to submit myself to my father for whatever it is he believes is the right thing to do with and for me.  I am sorry for how I have hurt him and how I have dragged your holy Name through the mud.  Please, bless my father more than you already have done.  Help him to see my absolute sincerity.  Help me to work to regain his trust.  It may sound hollow, but I do love you, Lord.  I thank you for opening my eyes to the truth.  I thank you for showing me just how wrong I have been.  I thank you Lord that though you could have cast me off, or even killed me, you chose not to do so.  My father was right about you, Lord.  You are endlessly patient and loving when you do not need to be.  I cannot thank you enough for that, Lord.  Help me to bring glory to your Name out of this mess that I have created.  I pray that you will be blessed in and through me.  Amen.”

Of course, I have no idea what or if the young man prayed at all.  However, I cannot imagine the time he spent journeying back to his father after his eyes were opened and not spending time with God in prayer.  Some believe that this man should have crawled the entire way back on his knees in order to really prove to God that he was penitent.  That’s garbage, in my view.  God already saw the young man’s heart and He knew what was there.  God saw the proof of the change that had come over the young man, because God Himself precipitated that change.  Did He need to see tears of guilt?  Did God require tremendous feelings of self-deprecation in order to be impressed enough with the young man to turn His attention to him?  Hardly, not when God was the One who caused the change to begin with and saw the effect that occurred.

There is a church in Mexico City in which parishioners literally crawl on their knees from the back of that church to the front, on the hard, rough concrete.  By the time they reach the front of that church, their knees are skinned, bruised and bleeding.  The only people they are impressing are those who see their misery and themselves.  They believe this proves to God that they are truly repentant.  See how they make themselves feel?

Whether we emotionally beat ourselves up or physically harm ourselves, the only purpose it seems to serve is either to ourselves or to those who see our pain.  We have proven nothing to God except that we are still trying to use SELF to please Him.  It won’t work.  It is anathema to Him.

We need to notice that with respect to the young man, there is no indication that he shed tears of guilt or self-judgment.  He did not castigate himself or beat himself up.  He did not throw himself to the ground of that pigsty wallowing in self-pity and self-denigration.

The young man did a number of things that proved to God he had changed:

1. saw the truth
2. came to the realization of what that truth meant
3. changed his direction
4. determined to set things right

Those four steps that I have just noted are what constitutes repentance.  It can be as simple and as heartfelt as that because God sees what goes on in our heart.  He does not need to see anything else.

I have grown tired of those who push their “holiness” on me and other individuals who are hurting under the tremendous load of enemy-inspired guilt.  These individuals believe that if you don’t walk around with an affected, ethereal-sounding voice and use self-denigrating speech, and are constantly on the verge of tears, you have not truly repented.  The interesting thing with these people is that I note how judgmental they often are and even condemning.  They group all “Christians” together, making no distinction between those who are Christians and those who only say they are Christian.

In effect, many of these individuals are self-serving unfortunately.  They appear to be holy and they appear to spread the message of holiness, when in my opinion, what they are spreading is a message of guilt; paralyzing, denigrating, guilt.  I do not believe God uses guilt on His own.  While He most certainly will use guilt on those who are not His, it is Satan who uses guilt on God’s children.  He uses guilt to condemn and choke.  He wields guilt as a weapon to destroy our faith in a loving God.

Romans 8 starts by telling us we are no longer condemned and it ends with the fact that nothing can separate us from God’s love.  How does guilt fit into that picture?  It doesn’t.  God will chastise us as our parent, but He will never guilt us into doing or believing something.

As a parent (if you are one), do you spent your time trying to make your kids feel guilty about the way they treat you?  Are you a purveyor of guilt cues, causing within your kids tremendous exasperation, so that they do wind up doing things for you out of duty, instead of love and respect?  If you do, then you need to know that this is not the way God treats His children and it is not the way He treats you, if you belong to Him.

Feeling guilty about something has no place in the walk of an authentic Christian.  When we are wrong, God will let us know and most of the time, we will know immediately.  It is in our best interests to react as the young son reacted.  He saw, he agreed, and he changed direction.  It’s as simple as that but that doesn’t satisfy some within the field of evangelism.  They want to see your pain because if they don’t see it, then they don’t believe you truly repented.  Who are they to demand what God Himself does not demand?  They are not the ones who need to see your repentance, unless of course, they believe that they have the power to absolve you of your sin.  It is God who needs to see it.

The prodigal son gives us a picture of what actual repentance is like.  It is essentially seeing the truth and acting on that truth.  If the realization of that truth brings tears of joy to your eyes, wonderful.  If it makes you want to shout “glory to God!” excellent.  If it makes you want to hurt yourself, WRONG!

Next time, we will talk about the father’s reaction to his son’s return.  Join me for that, all right?  In the meantime, ask the Lord what He has for you to do today.  How are you to bring glory to Him today?  How will He work in and through you today?  He has something specific for you if you are one of His children.  He will likely not send you a message via courier, nor will you hear voices in your head.  As you read His Word and pray, He will give you the grace to know that He is leading you throughout the day.  The things that you have viewed as mundane will take on greater meaning.

As you move through the day, His discernment will allow you to see things that you might have otherwise missed.  There’s a person who is hurting that you can help.  You remember that you need to pray for someone.  You gain more wisdom from His Word today than you thought possible.  It was easier to memorize Scripture.  Your entire outlook for the day is seen from His perspective, not yours.

As authentic Christians, we are blessed with the only God who has chosen to live within us in order recreate us into the image of His Son.  The Lord reigns and the more time we spend with Him, the more we begin to realize that He does reign and more than anything, we want to serve Him.  I hope and pray that this is your life today.  The Lord is with you, if you are His.  May He open your eyes to that truth as you seek to serve Him this day.

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